Perfect Party Cake

My first Daring Bakers Challenge- completed! I signed up with the Daring Bakers because it seemed like a great way to get back into baking with a challenge every month. This month we had the Perfect Party Cake recipe by Dorrie Greenspan. It's not the kind of cake that I would usually make (its baked in two pans and then split into layers)* as I generally think it's too much work but the cake was suprisingly simple and really delicious. The cake was a lemon sponge (flavored with the zest of two lemons, as I didn't have lemon extract and only realized it half way through the cake making process). The entire cake had only 1 stick of butter so it was relatively light, both in taste and fat content. I filled it with mixed berry jam and whipped cream and topped it with more whipped cream and coconut- the result was a happy mix of fruit and cream flavors and went over really well with everyone who tried it. So- Kudos to our hostess Morven who picked out this recipe for us (and who has the recipe up on her blog). I'll leave you with a few tips for when you try this one (not to be too cliche- but it really is a great party cake).

1) If you don't have cake flour, use AP flour but for each cup of flour take out 2T flour and add 2T cornstarch.
2) Your baking soda should be relatively new- if you remember celebrating the turn of the millenium with your can, it's time to get a new one.
3) The cake doesn't rise all that much. This is ok- you'll still be able to carefully slice it into layers.
4) Experiment with the flavors- you don't have to add the lemon, you can change up the jam flavors or add lemon curd, use buttercream of any flavor in place of the whipped cream, and add toasted nuts in place of the coconut.
5) If you're topping the cake with whipped cream- 1 pint heavy cream is more than enough for the entire cake, 1 C if you're only making half the cake.

*You may be asking- why does the picture show a two layer cake instead of the 4 layers you said you made? Well- I wanted to bring the cake to a friend's dinner party for dessert. I brought a bag with everything to put the cake together but forgot my camera. I really wanted to have a picture for my first Daring Bakers Challenge so I only made half the cake that night, and the second half that you see about the night after. It actually worked out really well- each half is enough for about 8 people.

Cherry Blossoms

I went to see the cherry blossoms today and they're just so pretty I couldn't resist posting a picture. Also- the recipe for focaccia is up- just click the link for the post below.

Focaccia

Confession- I have a bread machine. I love my bread machine. Sometimes it's just really convenient to put all the ingredients into the silver bucket and hit start and have a fresh bread a few hours later. This past weekend I had a bit of extra time (no classes on Monday so no reading to do) and decided to make bread by hand. Some people seem scared of making bread- like it is a cursed activity that can only lead to ruination. I haven't ever really felt like that, which may have something to do with 7th grade home ec. class. My group made a bread that turned out so beautifully our teacher took a picture of it so we could show our parents. I remember we were so proud of that little loaf, with its golden brown crust. It's sort of a triumphant feeling, having a bread turn out, definitely something I don't get making cookies or even using the BreadmanPlus.

This weekend I decided to make Alton Brown's foccacia recipe from I'm Just Here for More Food, his baking book. Alton (after so many years of watching 'Good Eats' calling him by his last name just seems too formal) gives clear, concise instructions that make this bread a great one for first time bread bakers, but the result is so delicious that even baking pros will come back to it. The foccacia has a light, slightly chewy texture and is the perfect size to split in half for sandwich making, or to just cut up and put out with a dish of olive oil. I should be able to post the recipe for it tonight so you can give it a try...

Okay- here's the recipe, re-written by me to try to make things super clear (and avoid any copyright violations)

Focaccia

Adapted from Alton Brown's I'm Just Here for More Food

Cornmeal Base

1 c. water

1/2 c. cornmeal (coarse of fine ground)

2 1/3 c. water

1/4 c. olive oil 

Dry Ingredients

879g/1 lb, 15oz/6.5 c. all purpose flour (can substitute bread flour if you have it)

1.5 T. instant yeast

1 T plus 1 t. salt

Olive oil and salt for topping.

- Make the cornmeal base by bring 1 c. water to a boil, wisk in cornmeal and cook until thickened (for fine ground probably a minute, for coarse ground 4 or 5 minutes).  Add additional water and oil to pan and heat to 110F.  You can check with a thermometer but it you don't have one, carefully check the temperature with your finger- it should be quite warm but not hot.

-  Pour the cornmeal mixture into your work bowl and add half of the flour and the yeast.  Mix well and let the dough rest for 10 minutes.

-  At this point the dough should be bubbly and have a greater volume than when you started out.  If it does not that means you yeast has kicked the bucket.  Do not pass go here- you need to start out again.  The two possibilities are that 1) your yeast is dead 2) you killed the yeast with water than was too hot.  If you think it's option 2, just try again with cooler water.

-  Now work in the remaining flour and salt.  You may need an assistant to help you with this one as it does get hard to mix.  You want the dough to form a ball that pulls away from the side of the bowl quite cleanly, but is still a bit tacky to the touch (think the feeling of that blue goo you use to put up posters in college dorm rooms).  You may not need to add all the flour, or you may need to add more than the recipe calls for. 

-  Kneed the bread for about 10 minutes.  At the end, it should be pretty elastic and not easily ripped.

-  Roll the dough into a ball and then put it in a greased bowl and top with a clean kitchen towel, let rise for 1 hour.

-  Spread the dough out on a half sheet pan (you'll need to squish and pull it to make one even layer).  Top with the clean towel again and let rise for about 1.5 hours.

-  20 minutes before the rise is done, preheat your oven to 450F, making sure you have a rack in the bottom third of the oven.

-  10 minutes before the rise is done, use your fingers to make little dimples all over the bread (tip- have someone without very long finger nails to this).  They can be fairly deep but shouldn't go all the way to the bottom of the dough.

-  Drizzle the top with olive oil (a few tablespoons) and sprinkle with kosher salt (around a tablespoon).

-  Bake the bread for 20 to 25 minutes or until the top gets a nice golden brown color.

-  Carefully turn the bread out onto a cutting board and serve warm.  It also hold up great for about a day on the counter without getting to stale and freezes really well.  Just cut into individual portions and wrap in foil or saran wrap, then put in a freezer bag.

Tortilla Española

Yesterday, after a rather futile attempt at the gym, I came home starving. It was 10am so I thought 'omlette', only we had nothing but cheese to fill it will. Then my eye landed on the leftover baked potato and 'omlette' shifted to tortilla española, otherwise known as Spanish omlette.

Spanish omlette is an egg and potato dish, usually layered high in a deep sided pan, but as I only had one potato and 5 eggs, mine turned out rather more trim. I sauteed some onion and added some smoked and hot paprika for flavor before added the potatoes. When they were warmed through, I poured in the beaten eggs and turned the flame down to low. To finish it off, the pan went under the broiler for a minute or two, to firm up the top of the eggs and I sprinkled on a garnish of parsley for a little color. Truthfully, it turned out a little dry, which may have been due to the potato's extended stay in the fridge. Also- when I conferred with a friend who used to live in Spain, she said that the Spanish usually use quite a bit of oil in their tortillas, which I definitely did not. This needs a bit of fine tuning before my next attempt, which will hopefully turn out well enough to post the recipe of.

Bravo Thomas

For the past few months I have had a strange obsession with English muffins. Something about them, maybe their perfect size for a snack, the fact that you can put jam on one half and butter on another, and/or their slightly chewy texture and nobbly appearance just call to me. I have been buying packages somewhat guiltily for while Thomas doesn't put transfats in their muffins, they do use high fructose corn syrup,* or so I thought.

At the grocery store last week I saw that siren song sign 'buy one get one free' under the English muffins. I couldn't resist and promptly pulled two plain packages (the sign expressly said 'plain variety only' or else cinnamon raisin and honey oat would have been my choices) off the shelf. I was shocked- but in a really good way- to see "now with no high fructose corn syrup" proclaimed in bold letters next to the Thomas logo! Now I can finally eat English muffins guilt free. It also gives me hope that if a huge company like Thomas can get rid of the high fructose, other companies might follow.

On a sidenote- does anyway have an English muffin recipe? I'm always wanted to try making them myself.

*High fructose corn syrup is a sugar syrup made from corn that has undergone processing to increase its fructose to glucose ratio and has a variety of industrial food uses including in soft drinks, candy and baked goods. It is much more prevalent in the US and Canada than other countries because of sugar prices supports and quotas on the ammount of sugar allowed into these two markets. This results in an increase in the price of cane sugar and as a result many manufacturers have turned to corn syrup because it is cheaper than cane sugar/syrup (because of the sugar quotas and agricultural subsides given to corn farmers in the US-- can you tell I'm taking an econ class this semester?).

What the problem with high fructose corn syrup? Well, according to which source you read maybe none, but it may make your blood sugar rise faster after consumption than sugar and could increase obesity. The research on these potential negative effects has been limited. My feeling- high fructose corn syrup is a heavily modified sweetener. I try to consume things in as close to their natural form as possible so I avoid it. No matter what your feeling on the matter, I think it's important to know the facts about what you're eating. A good place to start if you're more interested in this topic is (and I can't believe I'm citing this- Zach may actually drop dead- but it is actually a decently written article with citations and sourcing that seem legitimate) Wikipedia's article on the subject.

Creamy Spinach

I spent pretty much the entire day working on my econ take home midterm this Sunday. The afternoon went something like this: Study, Coffee, Study, Pizza, Study, Chocolate, Study, Bacardi. By the time I got home at 10 I was beat but craving vegetables and desperate to take my mind off of topics like "the value of Honduran exports to Brazil" so I decided to cook some Spinach.

A few weeks ago I came across a post on a blog that I cannot recall at the moment for creamed spinach, the traditional way, with lots of heavy cream. It looked great but I wondered if there was something I could do to create a creamy spinach dish without so much effort (and so many calories!) and at 10 o'clock on a Sunday night the inspiration (or it might have been desperation) hit.

I washed and and roughly chopped a big bowl of spinach, around half of one of those grocery store packages, then I smashed a garlic clove to get out some econ aggression and flavor the spinach. I put the garlic and about a teaspoon of olive oil in a non-stick skillet over medium heat and cooked it just until the garlic turned pale gold. I added the spinach to the skillet and let it wilt and then (this is the exciting part) I added grated Parmesan and a bit of cream cheese along with a few grates of nutmeg and gave it all a mix.

The result: deliciousness. The spinach retained a bit of texture as it had only been cooked briefly, the Parmesan added major flavor and the cream cheese provided the hit of creaminess I had been craving. Even Zach thought it was pretty good. An added bonus- it only took about 10 minutes to make. This one will definitely be making a reappearance.

Mashed Potato Pancakes

I cannot even tell you how excited I am about this post.  You know how sometimes the simplest  things are sometimes the tastiest and most satisfying?  This is definitley one of those times.  Last week Zach and I made mashed potatoes to go with some leftover meatloaf that my dad sent home with me.  We cooked a few too many potatoes and had enough for a lunch for each of us and another container of leftovers for the fridge.  I happened to catch Michael Chiarello on the food network while at work (it's really not as bad as it sounds-- we were stuffing envelopes) and saw him make an Italian potato pancake stuffed with cheese.  I thought, why not just make pancakes out of the leftover mashed potatoes?

I mixed the potatoes with an egg and flour to provide some structure and then divided it into two portions, one for each of us. I dusted my hands with flour then shaped the potato into a ball and stuffed in a piece of Edam cheese, then rolled the potato balls in a bit of flour, to help give them a nice golden crust and flattened them slightly into patties. The got a quick fry over medium high to make them crisp and then got an extra topping of cheese and went into the toaster oven. They emerged, 10 minutes later, puffed and golden, with a fluffy, creamy potato texture and a bit of melty cheese in the center.  We ate them for breakfast but they would be great for a weekend lunch or even for dinner with a bit of salad or wilted spinach.

Mashed Potato Cakes

Enough for one large and one medium cake, can easily be adjusted 

2 c. mashed potatoes, seasoned with salt and pepper

1 egg, slightly beaten

1/3 c. flour plus additional for dusting

1-2 oz. cheese (Edam, gouda, cheddar or whatever you've got that melts)

1/4 c. oil for frying (olive, canola or a mix)

-  Preheat your toaster oven, or if you are making mass quantities of cakes, your real oven to 400F.

-  Mix the potatoes with the egg and flour.  Cut the cheese into domino sized disks, one for each patty, shred the remaining cheese.

-  Scoop up about 1 cup of the potato mixture and form it into a ball (yes- your hands will get covered in it but you can wash them later).  Press one piece of cheese into the center and cover it with the potato.  You want the cheese to be at the center of the potato sphere, sort of like the core of the earth.

-  Roll the ball in flour to cover, than lightly toss it between your hands to remove the excess flour.  Press the ball slightly so it assumes patty form.  Repeat these two steps till you are done with the potato mixture.

-  Heat the oil in a heavy skillet over medium high heat.  When the oil just starts to shimmer, carefully place in the potato pancakes.  Cook 2-3 minutes or until golden brown, flip and repeat.

-  Remove the pancakes to you baking tray and top with the remaining cheese.  Bake for about 10 minutes.  You can tell they're done when they have puffed up and the cheese is melted.  Serve immediately.